It’s crucial to note that these very different bishops begin with references to the Resurrection — expressed in different ways — and then build on that doctrine to talk about issues in modern life, noted Phyllis Tickle, an Episcopalian best known for writing “God Talk in America” and other books on spirituality and culture.
The bishops do have different reference points, she said.
Jefferts Schori seems to be “starting inside the church” and then saying, “Look out there. Look at the world and see what we need to go and do.”
Meanwhile, Minns is “starting inside the church” and then saying, “Come in here. This is what happens when the church is really alive.”
The sad reality in Anglicanism today, she said, “Is that both of these leaders are talking to their people, to the people that they lead, but they are no longer part of the same body.”
Mattingly has it right. Different audiences have different expectations, and expect to hear different proclamations.
Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed.
PB Schori is a post-Christian apostle, a representative of the widely held faith that we exist in this life only, and must come together around the Millenium Development Goals.
Bishop Minns is a Christian, a representative of the faith once delivered to the Saints, a disciple of the Risen Lord Jesus Christ.
It is time for Divorce Court.
Tickle’s perspective is quite interesting. If we could step back for a moment, we might realize that what both bishops are saying is important, and that their ideas could complement rather than divide.
I remember a sermon given by a dean of a mid-western cathedral a number of years ago. I first read the sermon in The Anglican Digest, and it has stuck with me ever since. The dean was “speaking” about the differences between liberals and conservatives and the controversies that emerge. A couple interesting ideas he stressed: first, true conservatism and true liberalism compliment one another because they focus on different aspects of the one faith. Second, that most of those who claim to be liberal and conservative in the Church are really pseudo-liberals and pseudo-conservatives who are really more interested in the imposition of their position than working together to accomplish the fullness of the Gospel, the call of Jesus to be the Church within a hurting and screwed-up world. The dean wrote that what the Church needed were more conservatives and more liberals, but not pseudo-liberals/conservatives.
Sorry for the bad grammar above; proofreading – the bane of my existence.
[blockquote]Jefferts Schori seems to be “starting inside the church” and then saying, “Look out there. Look at the world and see what we need to go and do.”[/blockquote]
Which apparently includes driving out anyone with a shred of traditional Christian belief and then promoting one’s own good works through lobbying a legislature to extract tax dollars from the electorate to give to a corrupt amalgam of kleptocracies.
Include me out.
Actually, this notice is good in that it demonstrates very well the high level of flatulence at the office of the PB. The desire to amalgamate the two incompatible and mutually exclusive conceptions of salvation is
then broached and clearly should be seen to be not possible, for one is purely works based salvation and the other would have the works flow from receiving salvation. The Flatulence Factor is clearly self-identified. In the line of reasoning therein proposed, the PB should stop gassing, stop flying her airplane betwixt here and there, stop eating hamburgers, and stop the shredding of forests by her commando lawyers. But I expect as much follow through on that “gospel” as we have seen before.
On the other hand, if you can get folks into the God-ordained and given relationship to Himself and the earth as its stewards, you have a real chance to change individuals, society, and the earth such that we become good stewards beyond sloganeering and buying a Prius. But the second requires conversion, repentance, and lively faith. It’s tough.
Opting to give 0.7% to lobbying for increased taxation to get the government to fix the problem is soooo much easier.
Nearly everyone I have known who has come to a living faith in the living Christ has had a heart of compassion infused within them. They are usually pretty pragmatic and “local” in how they express it; they do not attempt to change the entire system by political efforts, but serve in soup kitchens and in free medical programs, etc. That may be a failing — or it may be the most helpful, since most lives are changed, I think, by heart-to-heart service.
I think that when Bp Minns says, “Come on in,” he knows that hearts will be changed — and that out of changed hearts will come caring actions. He multiplying ministers, not multiplying politicians.
Terry Mattingly is too gracious.
I heard our pastor’s sermon on Easter Sunday and he told us that the Resurrection was the best news EVER! Any Christian who did not hear such news is being shorted, being denied life-giving information.
After hearing such news, it may be possible to go out and express concern for the earth and the environment. But to omit the Resurrection–the best news EVER–is to omit the very source of life. People given only the environment for encouragement will never really live.
The difference, which Ms. Tickle either doesn’t see or ignores for the sake of making her point, is that Bishop Minns is just as likely to preach a message on any given Sunday that says “Go out,” while Bsp Schori is not likely to ever preach of sermon emphasizing physical resurrection or the possibility of radical transformation.
The same old same revisionist agenda is nothing but “death” that is softened and renamed by elitists to salve their sensibilities. Nothing new here. Same rut….and the only difference between this rut and a grave is the depth.
drjoan (#7) I absolutely agree with you that the resurrection is the best news ever (although I think the incarnation is right up there, as well as the ascension). Yet, even if I don’t particularly like what the PB presented as an Easter message, Tickle provides a way to understand why she said what she did without demanding a nefarious plot on the PB’s part. For the most part and for most people, particularly the younger generations, if I went up to most of them (which I do with some) and tell them what great news the resurrection (or salvation) is, normally what I get is a collective, gigantic yawn at best.
So then, what does it take to win a hearing? To most of the younger unchurched people I encounter, it takes someone actually living out what Jesus taught – even within the paradox of it all. People actually living it, experiencing it, knowing the reality of it, and not acting just like the world acts (which is exactly how we are acting through our Church troubles, and they know it!). From my experience, they don’t see most of the Church comprising those kinds of people. They don’t see the conservatives or liberals in all their proclamations, negativity, and prognostications actually living it. There is little respect for those who declare themselves “Christians” the loudest. That’s just reality, as I experience it.
I have to agree with Tickle, at least as a way of understanding how to make headway with unchurched people and as a way to better interpret what is being said by those with whom we especially disagree. The ideas of social justice (a very loaded phrase), including concern for the environment, personal integrity and the like, are important to prove through doing that we live up to what we claim to believe – love God and neighbor, for example. The calling to salvation and surrender is vital, also. We need both approaches and understandings, if for at least the unchurched. The two approaches and emphases can complement one another. We are the ones that insist that they are divisive. We “are no longer part of the same body” by our own choice. We shoot ourselves in the foot, and the cause of Christ suffers.
Hey Bob. Thanks for your posts!
I’m thinking there may just be a misunderstanding here. Everybody at T19 I am pretty sure agrees with you that part of what a church or parish necessarily does is outreach on what you call social justice issues, whether it’s starvation or sweatshop conditions or people being tortured or people destroying the earth. (On that latter issue there’s been a huge amount of increased involvment from evangelicals in the last several years.)
Another thing everybody here agrees with you about is that inside the body of Christ different people are called to do different things. St. Paul has a great extended metaphor about that, in which we are all like organs in Christ’s body, each doing something different. So in particular some people might be really good at that social justice type of outreach, and some may be better at talking to people one on one about the problem we all carry of guilt and sin, what Jesus did for us on the cross, and so on. You are right that some people aren’t really gifted at the latter but might be really good at the former. And yet both kinds of people are equally part of the body of Christ. (The hand cannot say to the eye, I have no use for you… etc.)
I have a close friend who is a Benedictine deacon, and he is GREAT at doing the social outreach stuff. (Actually he’s great at talking about guilt and sin and the cross too — but pretend for a second he wasn’t!) My deacon’s role in our parish was to do a lot of that stuff — to serve the least of these and so on. So although he actually can do the salvation and theology and doctrinal talk too, it would be fine for him not to do much of that — because that isn’t the particular job he was called to do.
And if +KJS was a person in charge of TEC’s mission stuff to the poor, or to the environment, it would be fine for her to have that be her main focus. But she’s not. She’s a BISHOP. Part of the “job description” — actually the primary part — of a bishop is defending the faith once delivered, being really good at talking about that central stuff like the Cross and the Empty Tomb and our deliverance from death by the Man who defeated death, and so on. When, on Easter Day, she has nothing to say about that, this is a huge problem.
Nobody here thinks that her Easter sermon was a “nefarious plot” on her part. On the contrary, we think it quite openly reveals what she has already been quite candid about in interviews — her disbelief in the Atonement and in eternal life. We think this is a problem.
To return to my beloved brother deacon, if his emphasis in his public church life was on serving the poor, that would be fine, since there would be an implied understanding that, while he wasn’t personally called to preach about the message of an individual’s deliverance from death and sin and guilt by the atoning blood of Jesus — because that sort of ministry wasn’t his strong suit — he nevertheless absolutely believed it; and indeed the very thing that fueled his social justice mission work was his faith in that personal deliverance and atonement.
So if by a liberal you mean a person who just isn’t especially gifted at that kind of salvation ministry, but who absolutely believes in those doctrines and would never do any thing to cast doubt on them, then I agree: liberals are great. But I think that’s a red herring. Theological liberals of the last 50 years don’t believe in those doctrines, by and large, and (like +KJS in her interviews, and by her failure to preach them) go out of their way to undermine the belief of other Christians in them.
But, Terry, their messages are not qualitatively equivalent. Their metaphysical viewpoints are disparate, to the point that it is impossible to regard both views as equally representative of either Biblical Christianity or Reality.
Jon (#11) Sorry this is so long – part of it is me “thinking out loud†in the context of responding to your comment. The Christians within this Church and Christians in general (and if you believe the Barna research, which I do, particularly the Evangelical/Born-Again sector) have so compromised the message of Jesus to unchurched and secular society that people simple do not believe us anymore.
It isn’t that suddenly we preach a “different gospel” that contradicts traditional understandings (which some obviously do preach a different theological perspective on the Gospel, like the PB in some areas), but we’ve compromised our witness because we behave so badly and contrary to our own tenets. Not much loving-even-our-enemies or mercy or traditional Anglican-comprehensiveness going on within our Church right now!
And, frankly, in the common-mind loving God, neighbor, and enemy is the hallmark of Jesus’ teaching (and we are so bad at it). Jon Stewart, being the cultural-Jew that he is, has said that he actually respects Jesus, despite the hypocrisy of Christians, but because of that hypocrisy he doesn’t really want much to do with Christians. Stewart is just one man, but he has tremendous influence over two whole generations – far more influence than does the Church. Bill Maher, of “Politically Incorrect” and “Real Time†fame, castigates Christians for not living up to their own code while demand the rest of the country do so. Do we not see what we are doing, or are we so consumed by hatred and winning-the-fight-at-all-costs that we have blinded ourselves? Well, we have for the most part.
More than that, there is great mistrust of and contempt for Christianity due to the examples set by American Christians, again if Barna’s research is correct particularly among Born-Again Christians. (Read “unChristian” by the president of the Barna Research Group).
We have as a Church, for at least the past 5 years, been completely consumed with ourselves in a very unhealthy way – accusation & counter-accusation, shouting back and forth, castigating one another, and pulling ourselves apart. We all can lay blame on each other, on other groups, blame all around for why this is the case, but regardless of who is to blame it has been and is the case. Non-Christians see it. They aren’t stupid.
We have been so negatively and inwardly focused that we don’t even recognize any longer the damage we have done and are doing to the cause of Christ among the worldlings. Anglicanism is so well situation for the leanings and longings of the younger generations, and Satan’s greatest victory working through reasserters and reappraisers is to make us so distasteful to those seeking that they simply stay away from us. We have so abused our witness – conservatives as well as liberals – that we must rebuild trust among people who don’t know Christ to earn the right to even begin to speak into their lives.
Our (Episcopalians/Anglicans and Christians in general) hypocrisy has been and continues to be on display, and the world sees it and thinks, “If this is Christianity and if this is Anglicanism and if this is the Gospel, it has no answers for me and I want no part of it.” I see this all the time. Viewed in this way, the consuming focus of the PB (which I presume! is a more social-gospel focus, rightly or wrongly) makes sense. She is in part “defending the faith once delivered” that we have so neglected corporately, but she is doing it in a way that some people don’t like. BTW, the problem with the social-gospel is that it can tend to neglect salvation – and as a system it has pretty much run its course, despite the hanger-ons. I don’t agree with some of the PB’s theological positions, but I would be stupid if I think that God cannot work through her and perhaps remind us of something we have been neglecting or blind to for too long.
And yes, there are those who do think that her Easter message is part of a “nefarious plot,” although they haven’t used those words, in that she is, perhaps unwittingly, a tool of Satan to deceive people with a false gospel and with her heretical theology, and to root-out faithful, God-fearing people from the Church.
What a great post, Bob (#13). So gentle and clear and thoughtful. It was a great help to me.
First let me apologize because there was a whole theme of your earlier posts (especially #10) that I failed to listen to properly or respond to; and to which I should have because you and I are in 100% agreement on this. And that is your diagnosis of the problem of how unchurched people see the fighting that’s been happening ever since spring 2003 in TEC and the broader Anglican communion. I agree 100% that it has damaged tremendously our witness to the world. And I agree that this is tremendously important.
Your thoughts about how to SOLVE that problem (which I realize are in a tentative and speculative state right now, as are mine) are something else; you appear to have a lot of openness to the idea that a person (e.g. +KJS) not talking about the cross or grace or forgiveness of sin, and replacing that with purely secular (though laudable) concerns about the ozone layer, is a great way to bring people to Christ. I have grave doubts about that. But I do agree with you ABSOLUTELY that the behavior of everyone inside TEC in the last 5 years has been a sin and a scandal and a tremendously damaging force to our witness to the Gospel (i.e. the Good News of unmerited love and forgiveness to suffering sinners by a gracious God).
My view (and I realize this is tremendously unpopular amongst my brother traditionalists) is that all of our rage and venom and self-righteousness and especially our willingness to litigate has been devastating to our ability to tell the old old story of the Man who did NOT answer back, who loved sinners, and who forgave his enemies.
My view is especially unpopular right now given the “good news” of our recent legal victory in Virginia (last 48 hours). I am a traditionalist and I have been very opposed to everything the reappraisers have done in the last 5 years. As you have seen in my earlier posts I view the widespread abandonment of creedal belief by most reappraising clergy and lay leaders and seminary profs and so forth as absolutely devastating to the gospel as well. But that doesn’t change the fact that the New Testament witness (Dominical, Pauline, whatever) is absolutely clear that you NEVER participate in the secular courts in lawsuits against other Christians and that in general you respond to injustice done to you by turning the other cheek. So yes, that means I believe that the right thing for us traditionalists to do is to quietly and lovingly accept whatever is wickedly done to us by 815: presentments, depositions, seizures of property, and so forth. I realize that this is an immensely unpopular view right now to hold but it is what I think.
My own view (which I just don’t have time to elaborate further today — too busy at work! LOL) is that unchurched people out there don’t need a lecture about the ozone layer. If I was unchurched (and moderately left wing) that might make me less hostile to Christianity, but it wouldn’t make me want to BECOME a Christian. Because, you see, if I am a latte-drinking tree-hugging fellow outside the church, I can still do all my environmental activism outside the church — plus still get to have my Sunday mornings be about sleeping in and reading the NYT. You haven’t reached some deep point of inner need which only Christianity and its old old story can answer. To see the actual effect of +KJS’s “gospel” of environmentalism and other vaguely left wing causes (the MDG’s etc.) — all of which I am tempermentally inclined toward by the way — look at Europe. They love that message over there — it totally resonates with them — and all their church buildings are being turned into museums. And why not? The message of +KJS is implicitly that Christianity has nothing to offer you that you don’t already get by sleeping in and reading the NYT.
Now you see, I believe that the problems of being human are universal and incredibly deep. I think the way to reach people is to find them at that place where they can admit that they are a total mess, and need Someone who can see all of that mass of loneliness and misery and sin and grief — and love them completely in spite of it. (St. Francis kissing the leper — there you have the entire Good News of Christ symbolized in one iconic image.) So my own theory of how to minister to the unchurched involves a strong focus on weakness and grace and forgiveness and it is based on the assumption that we actually don’t need to DO a whole lot. The problem is already set for us in the heart of the person — we just need to find a route to that place of tremendous need for love and release from condemnation.
Again, though, that’s all very tentative on my part too. There’s an interesting ministry being run out of NYC by one of the sons of Paul Zahl which sounds promising to me. I think they are having a big conference this weekend.
PS. It was very reassuring to hear you make clear that you believe in Satan and in other ancient beliefs of traditional Christians. That’s very helpful language for you to use with traditionalists like me; it reassures them them that (regardless of where you are on the issue of human sexuality) you have a lot in common otherwise. thanks.
Jon (#14) – you wrote, “If I was unchurched (and moderately left wing) that might make me less hostile to Christianity, but it wouldn’t make me want to BECOME a Christian.” And this touches on a primary point of mine: that they first need to be given some example or reason that does make them less hostile so that they will honestly consider the claims of Christ (honestly exemplified by those claiming Christ). Some till the ground, some fertilize it, some plant the seed, some water the seed, and by God’s grace the seed is harvested. Whether anyone wants to recognize it or not, +Jefferts Shori will be able to connect with some people that I or you or anyone else will not be able to (as with +Schofield, as with +Robinson and +Duncan…). She may well in spit of her wrong beliefs be used by God to break up hardened ground, just like I may be used despite my wrong beliefs to water that ground, and just like you in your wrong beliefs (for we all have wrong beliefs) will be used by God to plant the seed.
I know well the hardship and dangers of wrong belief and all that is wrought because of them. As a Christian that is supposed to be an example of the Gospel in the midst of hardship, I know too that the way in which I behave and whether my words line up with my actions, regardless of how I am treated or perceived, is all important.
When I was an undergrad student back in the ’80’s, there was a traveling preacher that came to campus once a year. His name was “Brother Jed” and some here may remember him. He got around. His modus operandi was to come on campuses for a week or so, preach in the public free-speech areas, call people whores and whore-mongers and condemn all to hell in the same breath he demands they be saved. He would always draw a lot of attention and condemnation by the Christian groups on campus – mostly comprised of Evangelical/conservative Christians. Within the campus ministry I was a part of (Christian Churches/Churches of Christ) there was great debate about the terrible witness this guy was to the Gospel and “real” Christians. How terrible it was that he came on campus to give Christians a bad name. How his theology was really screwed up (he believed that he and other true Christians “do not sin any longer because that is what the Bible teaches”). And, they worried about how real Christians needed to oppose him.
Huge crowds gathered around Brother Jed, mostly to ridicule and condemn him. Lots of gnashing of teeth, egg throwing, and the like. I didn’t like him, but what I realized was that during the time he was on campus the whole campus was all aflutter about religion and Christianity and faith and all that. People with whom I could never have started a discussion about Jesus, well, I was suddenly talking about Jesus. The opportunities that were opened up to talk about the Gospel was unbelievable – mostly with people hostile to Christianity – and most of the other god-fearing Christians on campus only saw something that embarrassed them and what they were against.
For those who took advantage of the opportunity, God worked through them while the majority of Christians just condemned and complained. Are we not able to see that even though the wrong theology of all of us (and we all have wrong theology at some point) can be an embarrassment and a hindrance, there are opportunities that God provides for us to work. All the acrimony and self-righteous justifications do not further the cause of Christ. If God can use an ass to get through to Balaam, then God can certainly use even theologically wayward people, even bishops, to get through to people who refuse to listen or cannot hear otherwise. (And no one should read into that that I am calling anyone an “assâ€!)
Some of this has to do with “group-think” and our tendency to only read and listen to those with whom we already agree. Some of this has to do with our misplaced notions that we must defend God and are responsible for His Church as the world works to defend or show responsibility, because for most of us that is all we know. God’s Church will not crumble and fall because some people within it are wrong and propagate their wrongness. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be diligent in defending the faith, but the manner in which we defend the faith and whether we do so out of a sense of insecurity and outrage or whether we do so out of a sense of confidence through humble mercy and grace does make a big difference. In the eyes of too many worldlings, what they witness among Christians is insecurity and outrage, lacking in the love God commands us to have and by which they will know we are true followers of God, lacking in the Fruits of the Spirit. What they don’t witness is confidence in the assurance that God will defend and revenge and protect His Church and His truth, and that His people demonstrate the humble ability to love unconditionally that such confidence enables. Whether we like it or not, non-Christians look at not so much what we declare to be Truth, but whether our lives line-up with what we proclaim to be True. This is why the shouts of heresy over esoteric belief statements (in their minds) fall on deaf ears. Where is the love, the grace, the patience, the humility, the long-suffering, the mercy? They don’t see it. They ask why then should they consider the claims of Christ with His representatives don’t really believe in them enough to live by them.
Thanks, Bob.
It sounds like you are saying again two things:
(1) A diagnosis of a certain problem (unchurched people alientated by the tremendous fighting and ugly feeling in TEC that’s been happening for the last 5 years)
(2) The suggestion that +KJS might be a help to solve that problem (many of these unchurched people may one day become Christians partly due to her influence and its emphasis on global warming and other ecoconcerns).
A big chunk of what you just said falls into point #1. You may just need to vent, and if so that’s ok. But just let me say again that you don’t need to on my account. I totally agree with you on this point. I totally agree with your diagnosis and its seriousness.
It’s your solution (#2) that I remain skeptical of. I just doubt she’ll be terribly successful in solving #1, or contributing anything toward its solution. Indeed, if there were a single person most responsible for the current state of scandalous fighting that is going on, (there isn’t of course) either she or Mr. Beers would be good candidates for that title.
There may be a misunderstanding here which I tried to clear up in my first post on this thread. Everybody agrees with you that it’s a good thing for churches to have a dimension to what they do that involves what you called social justice. That’s great. I’d also agree with you that this is a good way to cultivate less hostility amongst secular types. And at least myself, I’d agree with you that all parties in the dispute have a responsibility to abandon all anger and legal action with their opponents (and to abandon it even if the other side doesn’t and it costs you in a big way).
That’s all true. But I just don’t see a bishop abandoning the essence of Christianity in her Easter sermon as one of the things that will help people come to Christ. That’s what people were criticizing her for: not for having a special passion for environmental issues. We are fine with her promoting those: just not at the expense of a risen Christ on Easter morning. Does that make sense?
Jon – I think you pretty well summed up my points in your 1 & 2. Do we know, really, that what KJS wrote in her Easter message wasn’t want God wanted written? If you do, how do you definitely know that?
Could we step back for a moment and consider that perhaps, just perhaps, what she wrote was what God wanted – maybe not for us but for others. I may not have like was was written and don’t understand why she wrote what she did, but God uses even screwed-up people to accomplish His will – just look at David, for example.
My knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss the message and ridicule it, but I don’t know the mind of God on this issue. So, I need to step back and reserve judgment. I certainly don’t want to be like the pharisee and the publican at the temple, when the pharisee rises to pray and says of the publican, “Thank God I am not like that publican…” Luke 18:9-14.
Again, I don’t agree with her theology on many issues and may come to regret the way she is reacting, but if she truly desires to be an instrument of God’s will (and I think she does, despite everything), then God can use her in ways that He can’t use me or you or many others. As I’ve written many times before, in hindsight we will know definitively, but not now.
Well, when you put it like that, of course I can’t know; because I can’t be absolutely certain about anything in this world. So, for example, when I go visit meet my mother, I can’t be absolutely certain that it is her and not a space alien mimicking her. (Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a great movie premised on exactly that.) I can’t be absolutely certain that the world is round: after all I have never been around it myself. I can’t be absolutely certain that, if my nephew smokes 3 packs of cigarettes a day for 40 years, then his death of natural causes will happen sooner than if he hadn’t.
In life we often make assessments based on probabilities. Though we can’t can’t know a thing with 100% certainty, we can often make a reasonable judgment based on a fairly high degree of probability.
Christians, including quite decent ones, do the same thing. Life and ethics are admittedly a puzzle, and we can’t know for absolute 100% certainty what the right thing to do is; but when something seems virtually certain we call it “right” or “wrong.” Thus if a bishop were to advocate copulating on the altar as part of a new worship rite, we’d say that the NT and corporate witness is so clearly against that that it is a safe bet to criticize that bishop and say he is wrong. Or would you say that we shouldn’t do that because we can’t know for absolute certain?
I sense a confusion on your part between a person doing a bad thing, an immoral thing; and yet God in his unsearchable providence is able to find a way for great good to come out of the bad thing. That latter fact, if true, doesn’t make the bad thing no longer bad; which it seems like you are saying. I know of no limits myself to God’s ability to make roses grow from the mud. He could find a way to cause a woman who’s children were raped and tortured by a man to find the ability of forgiving him; that doesn’t make his actions now ok and those of us who politely criticized him worthy of reproof.
The supreme case of this is the cross itself. The cross was made possible by the wickedness of Judas and Caiaphas and many others (including you and me). Our badness is made no less bad because God in his amazing wisdom caused it to turn into something good.
So, I hope that helps show why two things are true:
(1) If we refrain from saying anything except when we are absolutely certain, then we’ll be unable to say we know anything at all.
(2) God making a good thing happen later out of an act X doesn’t bear on the moral quality of that action.
So in the case of +KJS, some people thought it was wrong for a bishop to do what she did. They can’t know God’s mind for certain, but they have this idea they are pretty sure of which is that bishops have a duty to proclaim a risen lord on Easter.
The larger issue is whether her strategy in general — which is for bishops and priests in their sermons to empty Christianity of all unique supernatural claims and instead make it a vaguely green leftwing granola eating latte drinking religion, in an effort to connect positively with that “market segment”, will really help those people eventually become creedal Christians. I do understand why you think it might; but as you also know I am skeptical for the reasons I’ve explained already.
This is not an abstract question that we could politely wait until the parousia to find the answer to. Because a particular church or parish will do something; they will have, implicitly or explicity, consciously or otherwise, some kind of approach to evangelism right now. So it’s a question we can’t really shy away from and just wait till glory to find out what was best. We have to make the best guess now as to what we think is best. Choosing not to choose is also a choice.